A bit of How’s your Aunt

Mum was on Mission Desert Storm today.

She ambushed me at work, four minutes after my arrival, by calling through on a withheld number and showering me with sniper fire about my time with Aunty L.

“So, what did she tell you?” Straight in there, with the aggressive speed and ferocity of a woman who consistently underestimates the effects of five cups of espresso before 10 am. (N.B Aren’t Mums supposed to say stuff like “Can I drop you off a basket of feta and olive scones? Or, why don’t you let me take you out for lunch and lend you my wisdom about the world, without any judgement or condescension whatsoever?”)

“Nothing really, we spoke about me,” I replied, in a very calm manner, telling myself that just because my mother is mad, doesn’t mean that I am mad. Telling myself that she’s about to start drawing a pension so I should value what little time she has left by being patient.

“Oh don’t be silly Vicky, tell me what she said. A conversation about you can’t have taken longer than a New York minute. You don’t do anything.”

I’m not THAT patient.

“Well, if you must know, Aunty Lesley has a couple of lady lovers on the go at the moment. One is ‘under wraps’ because she’s married to some man who works for the government. Then last week she got a call from a man who sounded like David Cameron, asking her to go on an undercover trip to Russia.”

There was a silence long enough for me to finish a few e-mails and then, as I was about to hang up, I heard a gush of steam which could only have come from the Gaggia.

“I have always wondered if she was a spy. It would explain why she never tells me anything,” she said.

My head hit the table with a thwunk and Bernard pushed a biscotti under my nose.

”I’ve got to go, I’m at work”. I sounded irritable. I WAS irritable. So what if she was about to get her Freedom Pass? She’d had a good innings already.

“Don’t get snappy with me young lady. I’m trying to juggle a million things, not least this tiresome Gaggia machine. I’m coming round to pick up the Black and Decker for your brother. He’s sprucing up his bachelor pad now that he’s stepping out with the manager of a football team. A woman manager, not a man manager, in case you were wondering. She’s feisty and gorgeous, apparently. You’d have to be to compete with all those men in the workplace”